Three years ago and a day exactly, I did a point-by-point comparison among QE2, QM, and QV. I attempt something similar here. I’ll throw out some names too, which wil be identified by the end of the post. First set of names: Olsen, McNaught, and Wells. Know ’em?

The foto above and the one below . . . the bows of the two most recent Queens seem … identical?

Their cleavage . . . at least that which cleaves the waters . . .

however, is not equally exposed. And it appears the bulb of QV, below, has gotten mottled in her several years communion with the seas. I trust the yellow color is a metal coating . . .

Portside frontal profiles, including the “balls” forward of the stack cluster, seem

quite the same also.

A close look at the bulb and loadlines shows that, for whatever the reason, QV is about 40 centimeters

higher in the water than QE. Notice the ice glazing on both.

With QE in the background, here is one of the four props of one of the vessels that has come up in a lot of conversations about the Queens, the mothballed SS United States, which used to deliver 240,000 hp to its wheels.

Bunkering QV here is Harley’sSt Andrews, I believe. While we’re talking about saints, here are two more names relating to these vesels: Saint Nazaire and Marghera.

Thursday after noon up to an hour before QM2 started to move upriver in search of her calves, this unidentified Vane boat was bunkering her in Red Hook. Anyone know which Vane tug stands by here with the bunker barge?

Here’s another shot of the Brooklyn passenger terminal, showing (from left to right) Mary Whalen, a Watertaxi vessel, and an unidentified Reinauer tug and barge unit (anyone know which?) directly in front of the Vane boat and QM2.

By the way, can anyone help me out with the name of the green-gabled skyscraper in the right portion of the background?

Two hours later, here’s a shot of (far to near) QM2 and QV, showing their stepped stern decks. Some numbers: 3056–1253, 2250–1253, and 2092–992. These numbers are maximum passenger capacity to crew size 0n QM2, QV, and QE, respectively. If you want the best passenger-to-crew ratio, it appears, then take QV.

In contrast to the two slightly older Queens, QE has a fuller, boxier stern . . . hence, the slightly larger passenger capacity on QE relative to QV, which both came into existence in Marghera, a “suburb” of Venice. QM2 was constructed in Saint Nazaire, on the west coast of France.

Finally, that first set of names (Olsen, McNaught, and Wells), these are the Masters of the three Queens. Inger Klein Olsen is from the Faroe Islands and Cunard’s first female captain. McNaught is from Glasgow and son of a marine engineer. Wells worked on Shell tankers and became second officer on QE2 before becoming master of QM2.

Like the other five boros, the sixth boro is trafficked by creations large and small. Two diverse large vessels are Cunard’s QM2 and MSRC’s New Jersey Responder, a key player in the case of any oil spill in the New York area. The 210′ vessel, in spite of all its systems, might be dwarfed by the crisis. Fifteen of these Oil Spill Responder Vessels are positioned around the US. Check out “moondogofmaine” ‘s posting on these vessels compared with the European counterparts.

Here Bohemia and Patuxent are dwarfed by a container vessel, wheras only

only moments later, something comes westbound on the KVK to magnify the Vane tug into something of the Gulliver-class.

I didn’t catch the name of the small gold tug before it disappeared behind a light Bouchard barge.

A final word on scale: all are important. For example, consider the power of a snowball v. the power of an avalanche. Easy . . . the more powerful is the snowball if that triggers the avalanche. Without the snowball, no avalanche would occur.

All fotos yesterday by Will Van Dorp.

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